The Bear and the Bees

Fables

Aesop

A Bear happened to be stung by a Bee; and the pain was so acute, that in the madness of revenge he ran into the garden, and overturned the hive. This outrage provoked their anger to such a degree that it brought the fury of the whole swarm upon him. They attacked him with such violence that his life was in danger, and it was with the utmost difficulty that he made his escape, wounded from head to tail. In this desperate condition, lamenting his misfortunes, and licking his sores, he could not forbear reflecting how much more advisable it had been to have patiently borne one injury, than by an unprofitable resentment to have provoked a thousand.

MORAL.

It is more prudent to acquiesce under an injury from a single person, then by an act of vengeance to bring upon us the resentment of a whole community.